liebe verlor
by sea-salt kisses
Summary: He sees the past, and begins to break. — Isa, Lea, Saïx, Axel


I really wanted to play with the friendship of Axel and Saix, because it's never really made totally clear in the games. This was originally meant to be much longer and delve into the Axel/Saix/Ventus thing, but I decided to keep it short because I think it works better with this piece. Their friendship still isn't really clear... But I think this helps to explain why Saix gets so jealous and possessive when Axel abandons him for Roxas.

Please R&R. I listened to Xion's Theme all through this, as it is the saddest theme EVER. Probably why this ended up so angsty.

**liebe verlor.**

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><p>He didn't think it was wrong, the way he envisioned their lips searing together. It was all he'd thought about for months: the sweet cinnamon taste of Lea's lips, melding with the pink dusting across his cheeks to create something Isa had never had – a feeling of companionship; <em>love<em>. It seemed like such a silly word to describe the way he felt for his best friend. In fact, feeling the way he felt was a silly thing in and of itself. But when you're seventeen and an incubus of raging hormones, voices dripping with in deep, confident timbres and eyes too green to be human become an arch nemesis in the battle for self-control – at least, that's how Isa saw it.

They were nothing alike, really, and this did nothing but frustrate him more. He was calm, collected, and chose to spend his lazy afternoons scrutinizing bugs trapped in Mason jars, humming quietly beneath his breath. Lea, on the other hand, tripped through life with a _fuck-you!_ grin plastered on his face, throwing his frisbees at anything that moved, and taunting Isa with the beautiful crease between his eyebrows when he talked about the deplorable state of his parent's relationship. The blue-haired teen was always auxiliary, supportive, and guided that head of red hair onto his lap, daring to cradle the boy's head in his hands. Lea allowed it, because it was something friends did, and tried desperately to ignore the small tendrils of fire that stemmed from Isa's touch.

When it was late and Lea's parents threw particularly nasty words across their foyer, the redhead ran, ran, ran away, climbing the tree near Isa's room and jumping through the curtain'd window, coercing said boy to 'move over, stingy,' and they lay in bed together. Some nights Lea sniffled softly into the pillow, and Isa would sigh and take the other's hand, because he knew Lea would never ask for comfort. It was innocent, Lea convinced himself, something he would have done to a brother or sister had he had one, though he'd long forsaken the thought of having a sibling someday. Not when his parents tossed daggers carelessly at one another, waiting none so patiently for the other to gather up enough courage to take the final step into bottomless air. They laid in silence most nights. In fact, there had only ever been one exception.

"Go to sleep," Isa murmured once, when school was close to letting out and the air was hot and stifling, giving the thin hand clutching his a soft squeeze, exhaling gently at the way Lea's heat felt against the cool skin of his palms.

"You know I can't," Lea whispered in response, head lolling to the side so his eyes could make contact with Isa's. "Not like this."

Isa caught the double meaning in his words, but shoved any hope that Lea had meant it aside, because there wasn't any way Lea could share in his feelings. Not when Lea was the light brimming from every direction and he could merely steep in the shadows. The boy allowed a bitter laugh at his friend's words, smiled sadly, and pressed his lips against the warm forehead a few inches away. Lea closed his eyes.

"Try. Even if they aren't, I'll always be here for you."

His words made Lea's breath catch, though none of this showed on his face. Lea drew Isa's palm to his chest, allowing the cold flesh to lay atop his shirt, squeezing tightly, pressing the hand closer and closer to his heart. Isa could hear its steady beat like a drum behind the boy's ribs, and allowed his hand to be nestled between Lea's own. It was the closest to heaven he'd ever been.

"I know," the redhead lilted, drifting off to sleep clutching Isa's fist to him like a life preserver. They slept fitfully, and when Isa awoke the next morning, his hand lay limp and lifeless against the sheets, the only remnants of the night before the cloak of cinnamon and potpourri – the tell-tale smell of Lea – lacing his pillow.

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><p>Two years later, his heart is ripped still beating from his chest, and all he wants is to die along with it.<p>

They take him to a palace of white and chrome, and he smells nothing, hears nothing above the din of his own agonizing screams.

He writhes in anguish for days before he manages to quell the ache and breathe normally again.

They tell him he is Saix now, that Isa is dead and that his memories must die along with him. He knows deep down inside that he should feel some sort of _something _about this, because this is _wrong_, and where is Lea? His heart doesn't skip a beat when he pictures the head of impossibly red hair, nor does his stomach twist when he thinks about the blonde he's with now – Ventus. No, he feels nothing, and the days sweep by like minutes. He learns faces and not names, does whatever the man with glittering silver hair asks him to do. He learns that he no longer has a heart, that he is damned, unless they can aggregate enough energy to give him one again.

But he still doesn't learn the whereabouts of Lea, his... his what? Even before he became a part of this, they hadn't talked in months. Not since Ventus... A lump builds in his throat when he thinks of them together, hands entwined, fingers interwoven into the other's hair, though he still _feels_ nothing.

It's not until they summon him to welcome the newest member to their organization (cult) that he feels anything at all.

Blue eyes find tragedy awaiting him as he stares down from his perch in one of thirteen chairs. Below him stands a living illusion – Lea, but not Lea. This man is taller, thinner, cheekbones more defined, hair a lion's mane of red. His name is Axel. Saix knows he shouldn't react this way, but he wants nothing more than to destroy the apparition, to slice it to ribbons. It doesn't matter that he himself has aged too, that his hair is longer, that he has a scar in the shape of an 'x' from the Heartless that brought him here. As the other members are introduced, one by one, sea-foam green eyes dart across the row to finally land upon Saix. They narrow in hazy recognition, and it sickens him that anyone but Lea can engulf his stomach in flame from a mere glance.

They meet some time later in a long sterile corridor, eyes clashing, iceberg against mint, and the abomination, Axel, smiles a terrible grin and addresses him as his not-name. Before he can censor them, words spill uninhibited from his lips.

"What happened to you?"

He knows why he's here – because in life, his soul became so engulfed in the darkness that it was consumed by it. But Lea was the light – Lea was what the darkness fled from. That he should be here was simply wrong. And when the smile tumbles from Axel's face, Saix feels his stomach clench in time with his jaw.

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><p><em>"I want everybody I meet to remember me," Lea admitted with a shrug, leaning more of his weight onto the gingham blanket beneath them. Long fingers picked at stray blades of dead yellow grass, eyes locked on the horizon. "Inside people's memories, I can live forever."<em>

_Isa couldn't help but smile tenderly at the admission from Lea's lips. Deep down, it pleased him to know that Lea's fear was utterly irrational – it would take a special person not to remember someone like Lea. "I know I won't forget you," the boy mused quietly, blue eyes traversing the twinkling stars far above their heads. "Believe me, I try all the time._"

_Engrossed in the celestial bodies far above, Isa missed the way Lea's eyes flickered to him, wide and confused. He missed the way Lea looked at him – confusion, adulation, fear, desire – all in one._

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><p>"<em>You.<em>"

And for the first time since losing his heart, Saix feels himself begin to break.

**fin.**


End file.
